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min answer › date of answer

2019-05-22

answer › answering member printed

Harriett Baldwin

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To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment he has
made of the implications for his Department's policies of the findings of the UNESCO
report entitled Meeting commitments: are countries on track to achieve sustainable
development goal four that more than 220 million children, adolescents and youth will
not be in school in 2030.

<p>We welcome the recent UNESCO reports focusing on how to achieve SDG 4 on Global
Education by 2030. These reports resonate well with DFID’s Education Policy: <em>Get
Children Learning.</em> The UK will continue to support 12 years of quality education
for girls and boys, starting with the basics of literacy and numeracy.</p><p> </p><p>To
achieve this, we:</p><p>a) Drive improvements in teaching which benefit all children
in the classroom;</p><p>b) Support ambitious system reform which helps teachers succeed
and keeps children safe; and</p><p>c) Provide targeted support to disadvantaged girls,
children with disabilities and those affected by conflict and crisis.</p><p> </p><p>We
use our leadership on the world stage to shine a spotlight on the needs of the most
marginalised and strengthen the multilateral system of support for education.</p>

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, if he will make an assessment
of the implications for his Department's policies of the findings of the UNSECO report
entitled Beyond commitments how do countries implement SDG 4, published on 8 July
2019.

<p>We welcome the recent UNESCO reports focusing on how to achieve SDG 4 on Global
Education by 2030. These reports resonate well with DFID’s Education Policy: <em>Get
Children Learning.</em> The UK will continue to support 12 years of quality education
for girls and boys, starting with the basics of literacy and numeracy.</p><p> </p><p>To
achieve this, we:</p><p>a) Drive improvements in teaching which benefit all children
in the classroom;</p><p>b) Support ambitious system reform which helps teachers succeed
and keeps children safe; and</p><p>c) Provide targeted support to disadvantaged girls,
children with disabilities and those affected by conflict and crisis.</p><p> </p><p>We
use our leadership on the world stage to shine a spotlight on the needs of the most
marginalised and strengthen the multilateral system of support for education.</p>

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment he has
made of the implications for his Department's policies of the findings of UNSECO in
its report, Global education monitoring report 2019 – gender report: Building bridges
for gender equality.

<p>We welcome the recent UNESCO reports focusing on how to achieve SDG 4 on Global
Education by 2030. These reports resonate well with DFID’s Education Policy: <em>Get
Children Learning.</em> The UK will continue to support 12 years of quality education
for girls and boys, starting with the basics of literacy and numeracy.</p><p> </p><p>To
achieve this, we:</p><p>a) Drive improvements in teaching which benefit all children
in the classroom;</p><p>b) Support ambitious system reform which helps teachers succeed
and keeps children safe; and</p><p>c) Provide targeted support to disadvantaged girls,
children with disabilities and those affected by conflict and crisis.</p><p> </p><p>We
use our leadership on the world stage to shine a spotlight on the needs of the most
marginalised and strengthen the multilateral system of support for education.</p>

<p>The UK has been a major supporter of the response to the Ebola outbreak in eastern
DRC since it began in August 2018. Community engagement remains one of the most important
factors that will help end the outbreak and strengthening this aspect of the response
is a key part of the ongoing ‘reset’ pushed for by the UK and other partners. The
response, led by the Government of DRC with international support directed by the
UN, is increasingly working with religious leaders to help foster community trust
and ownership. On top of our wider financial, technical and political support to the
response, UK Aid is funding anthropological research into community dynamics in affected
areas, which is helping response partners strengthen their engagement with communities,
including faith leaders.</p><p>The Secretary of State for International Development
met with faith leaders (both Christian and Muslim) in Butembo during his recent visit
to eastern DRC. He also recently discussed the outbreak with the Archbishop of Canterbury,
whose insights were incredibly valuable, while officials continue regular dialogue
with a number of UK-based faith groups on the issue.</p>

<p>DFID is tackling the learning crisis by supporting children to learn the basics
of literacy, including in Commonwealth countries.</p><p>We are investing in English
language learning, for example through our new skills hub, which includes Kenya, South
Africa and Nigeria.</p><p>We also work directly to boost the quality of teaching in
English, for example through the Girls’ Education Challenge.</p>

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, with reference to the
announcement by the French Development Agency of €1 billion in equity and €1 billion
in loans being made available to African entrepreneurs through the programme Choose
Africa, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of the UK adopting a similar
scheme.

<p>The UK is committed to supporting entrepreneurship in Africa to grow local economies,
create jobs, reduce poverty and support sustainable development. Last summer, the
PM announced that CDC Group, the UK’s Development Finance Institution, would invest
up to £3.5 billion in businesses in Africa over four years (2018 to 2021). CDC has
already committed £1.9bn in Africa over the last 3 years (2016-2018). CDC is invested
in 698 different companies in Africa, directly supporting 370,000 jobs.</p><p>Through
CDC and other country specific initiatives, we will mobilise a further £4 billion
of private investment for Africa. This investment will allow businesses to grow, produce
goods and services for local people, generate income and tax revenues, and help address
the financing gap for meeting the Sustainable Development Goals.</p><p>In January
next year, the UK will convene an Africa Investment Summit to further promote investment
in Africa and to strengthen the partnership with UK investors and companies.</p>

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions
he has had with his South African counterpart on potentially changing the travel advice
for UK nationals in the Cape Town area due to recent violence.

<p>Our High Commission in Pretoria and Consulate in Cape Town have regular engagement
with the South African host authorities on safety and security. We keep our travel
advice under constant review and make regular updates to ensure it reflects our assessment
of risk to British nationals, including highlighting hotspots where British nationals
would be at more risk of being the victims of crime or violence.</p>

<p>The annual contributions DFID makes to the national budgets of Montserrat, St Helena
and Pitcairn (the Overseas Territories eligible for official development assistance
(ODA)) which support the delivery of government services, includes funds for environmental
protection.</p><p> </p><p>DFID contributed £500,000 each year from 2012-2015 to the
Darwin Plus Initiative, a challenge fund created by the Department for Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and DFID
to support environmental protection. Since the 2015 Spending Review, all ODA spend
for Darwin Plus has been managed by DEFRA.</p>

<p>(a) DFID spent £564m bi-laterally on the broad Education sector in 2018/19. The
sectors that have been included are: Education (level unspecified), Basic education,
secondary education and post-secondary education.</p><p>(b) DFID spent £691m bi-laterally
on the broad Health sector in 2018/19. The sectors that have been included are: Health
general, basic health and non-communicable diseases.</p><p>(c) (i) DFID spent £1,048m
bi-laterally on the broad Economic Infrastructure and services sector in 2018/19.
The sectors that have been included are as follows: Transport &amp; storage, communications,
energy generation and policy, banking and businesses.</p><p>(ii) DFID spent £209m
bi-laterally on the broad Social Infrastructure sector in 2018/19. The sectors that
have been included are: Social protection, employment creation, Housing Policy, Culture
and other social services.</p><p> </p><p>We have used definitions that are in line
with DFID’s National Statistics – <em>Statistics on International Development</em>.</p><p>In
addition, we make contributions to multilateral organisations like the Global Partnership
for Education and the Global Fund.</p>

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will make
representations to his South African counterpart in the (a) recent trends in the level
of violence and murder in Cape Town and (b) the potential consequences for visitors
from the UK of those matters.

<p>Our High Commission in South Africa regularly raises issues of concern with the
South African authorities where necessary, in particular where UK nationals are involved.
We work with South African law enforcement, providing training and capacity building
to the South African Police Service and support links between our legal systems. UK
nationals should always consult Foreign and Commonwealth Office travel advice, which
is regularly reviewed.</p>